On 25 August 2011 at Chelmsford Crown Court, a self-employed roofing contractor was sentenced to eight months in prison, suspended for a year, after his failures resulted in a friend dying in a fall through a garage roof.

Here we look at four recent cases that have involved work at height failures. All the cases resulted in notable sanctions – either in fines that were in excess of £100,000, or in suspended prison sentences. The judges in all the cases stressed that the risks of people or objects falling during work at height were well known and foreseeable, and that the penalties should reflect this.

On 7 November 2011 at Derby Magistrates Court, two roofers were imprisoned for 18 weeks each, after a role of roofing felt fell through an office roof on which they were working, hitting a woman who was sitting at her desk.

On 31 October 2011 at Manchester Crown Court, J Mills (Contractors) Ltd was fined £145,000 after its failures resulted in an employee falling 10 metres through a skylight. The employee, Alan Kerwin, fractured his skull and developed post-traumatic epilepsy as a result of his injuries; two years after his fall, he died from an epileptic seizure.